Sling Media has unveiled a pair of new settop boxes for its Slingbox family called the Slingbox 500 and the Slingbox 350. Both new products will be available in retail stores and promise full HD resolution streaming video sent from your home to your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or other device.

"Slingbox is still the best way to extend the entire living room TV experience anywhere," said Sling Media's Senior Vice President and General Manager, Raghu Tarra. "We've redesigned our Slingbox products from the ground up, adding features and enhancements that make them easier to set-up and use while creating the highest performing products on the market. With these new product introductions Sling Media continues to evolve and disrupt the category we created."

Slingbox 500

The 500 has integrated IR emitters for controlling the settop box and includes Wi-Fi, HDMI, component, and composite connectivity. The device can placeshift content allowing you to stream live TV programming anywhere. The 500 also has a first for a Slingbox product -- the ability to receive content and display it on the TV from the portable device with a feature called SlingProjector.

SlingProjector allows users to wirelessly display photos and other media from their smartphone on their TV in the living room. Slingbox says that it will also have other ways to display content on the television screen in the coming months.

The Slingbox 350 supports full HD resolution streaming video to compatible mobile devices. It has integrated IR emitters making it able to interact with your cable or satellite boxes. This device does not have integrated Wi-Fi and doesn't have the ability to send content from your smart phone to your television screen.

Slingbox 350

Sling Media is also announcing a new SlingPlayer software client for desktop and mobile platforms. The company is offering the client software for Android, Windows Phone, and iOS at a price of $14.99 via a special launch offer.

Both new Slingbox devices will go on sale on October 14 in the U.S. and will hit Canada in November. The 500 will sell for $299.99 while the 350 will be priced at $179.99.

I personally find the industrial design of both models to be both hideous and an impairment to actual usage.

As you stated, the 350 will be a nightmare to clean.

For the 500, why did they feel it was necessary to go for the "twisting a cardboard box as I'm stuffing it into the trash" look? These devices are intended to be used with an existing set top box, meaning they will be going into your existing component stack. What makes them think that a non-stackable design is a "good thing"?

I'm a big fan of the technology and I'm taking a serious look at the model 500. If I do end up purchasing, it will be in spite of the design, not because of it.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer